Belt Sander - Grinder Set-Up Tool/Jig

As a woodworker, I have to deal with a common problem – set up rests and things to specific angles for sharpening chisels, lathe knives and so on.

To allow me to do this [and other things], I’ve got squares, triangles templates, adjustable protractors and so on. When Stewart Batty gave an informative and inspiring demo, I bought his grinder set up tools. Too, I’ve got interesting and fun angle setup tools. I’ve looked at and considered the Raptor tool for the grinder and wouldn’t mind having a set to play with.

Generally, I’m happy with the templates and tools I have because they allow me to do many things I need to, but I wanted more (yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m the first). For example, the average triangle is worthless for setting up a tool rest on a rest for either my grinder or 1” belt sander and other things I mentioned make those look good.

I’ve wandered all over the Net and am surprised at how limited the selection of set up tools for setting angles on various things are. Even “reverse” angles aren’t easy to find, or they’re too small to be of any real use.

NOTE: I never took geometry and never looked too deeply into relative details, so all I know is, work with either a straight line (180 degrees) or a circle (360 degrees) and figure out what you need. That is, if you need something associated with 45 degrees, but that won’t do, add degrees until you get the opposite (e.g., 135 degrees or 315 degrees, until it fits)

Anyway, I did figure out a parallelogram fits the bill pretty well. Accordingly, I set off on [yet another] adventure: Make something that works for me, even if it means reinventing the wheel.

To that end, and since I scored a literal pickup load of Plexi in many different thicknesses, colors and sizes, I used some of it to make parallelograms of various angles common to sharpening lathe knives and so forth. They work nice. However, you have to make one for each angle. Or not.

Going back to wheels and [re]inventions for the umpteenth time, I cut strips of Plexi, drilled holes in the end and rounded them over. Then I ran screws through them and added knobs to allow me to adjust and lock it. Next is the markings (e.g., 0. 15, 22-1/2, 30, 45, 50, 60, 70 degrees).

At any rate, what do others of you use to set angles on your grinders and belt sanders for sharpening?